“Ooh,” Crosbie whispers, equally captivated. “Who needs sleight of hand when you have sleight of foot? Maybe I haven’t given that guy enough credit. Maybe he does have game, after all.”
We back away from the door, unwilling to interrupt. “Let’s go out the back,” I suggest. “Where are you parked?”
“Down the block.”
Our coats and my purse are stashed in the storage room, and we snag them quickly and head out into the alley and around to the street. The plan is to go to Marvin’s when open mic wraps up, so Nate had given us the okay to store our props here over night. I worked the first part of the evening but my shift ended when Crosbie’s performance started, so it’s okay for me to bail early.
“Do you think they’ll ever get it together?” I ask. “The anticipation is killing me.”
“Of course they will,” Crosbie replies, reaching for my hand. “Has magic taught you nothing? What you don’t see is just as important as what you do.”
I think back to my belated epiphany. How sometimes it’s the things we do when we think no one is watching that really matter. “You’re right.”
“Of course I am.”
“Ha ha.”
We reach his car and he gallantly unlocks the door and gestures for me to climb in. “Wait. Why are we getting in your car?” I ask. “Aren’t we going to Marvin’s?”
Crosbie checks his watch. “Show’s not over for another half hour. We’ve got time.”
“For what?”
“To go back to your place to bang our brains out.”
“Ooh. Be still my heart.”
He laughs. “Just get in.”
I do as instructed and he closes the door, then rounds the front and climbs into the driver’s seat. “Give me a hint,” I order. We’d agreed not to do anything special tonight, so this feels suspiciously like I’ve been fooled.
“Hold your horses.”
He starts the car and gives it a second to warm up, but before he can pull out, a car comes up alongside us, honking maniacally.
Crosbie groans. “Dammit.”
I can’t help but laugh as he rolls down the window to see Kellan leaning across the passenger seat of his car, not one but two girls squeezed into the front.
“Great show tonight!” he hollers. “You have to tell me how you did that thing with the glass of water!”
The girls echo the praise and Crosbie handles it smoothly, perfectly comfortable with the attention. It didn’t take long for him and Kellan to get back to best friend status, so I still see Kellan from time to time. Things aren’t weird but they’re not entirely normal, either, and Kellan seems to have forgotten his vow to stop messing around. I’m not the person who moved into that apartment in September, and Crosbie’s not the person I thought I met then, either. But Kellan is exactly who he appeared to be—no pretenses, no illusions. Maybe he’ll change, and maybe not. Whatever he’s doing seems to be working for him, and that’s what matters.
He invites us to a Valentine’s party at one of the sororities, but Crosbie demurs, saying we have plans. Kellan gives a lascivious waggle of his eyebrows, wishes us luck, and speeds off.
“Jealous?” I ask, when Crosbie exhales and watches them go.
He looks over. “Of what?”
“Of that. Of the…variety.”
“Are you kidding?” He pulls into the road and starts driving back toward Burnham. “I’ve got Nora the Nerd, Nora the Assistant, Nora the Convict, Nora the Party Animal… Your multiple personalities provide all the variety I’ll ever need.”
“I don’t know what I see in you.”
He flexes his arm, and even in the dim light from the streetlamps it’s obvious he has very impressive muscles. “It’s probably these guys.”
I squint. “I can’t see anything.”
A few minutes later we reach the Frat Farm and find parking a couple houses down from Alpha Sigma Phi. The place is dark, the guys either at the open mic to support their friend or at one of the various parties around campus.
“A frat house,” I whisper, getting out of the car and following Crosbie down the sidewalk. “How charming!”
He smacks my ass. “Just you wait.”
He leads me inside and up the stairs to his room, unlocking the door and trailing me in. If I was expecting rose petals and mood music, I’d have been sorely disappointed. It’s exactly the same as it always is, right down to the corner of the Hustler sticking out of his pillowcase.
“Here,” he says, grabbing a pair of my sweatpants from the back of his chair and tossing them to me. “Put these on.”
I frown. “I feel like this is going the opposite of how I pictured it.”
“Patience, grasshopper. I have a point.”
“Let’s hope so. You know I like to sleep in these pants. You’ve got about five minutes before I crash.”
He laughs. “I’ll make it fast. Get changed and I’ll be right back.” He hurries out of the room and I hear him run down the stairs as I tug on the sweats over my tights. I hadn’t taken off my jacket and since he hadn’t either, I leave mine on, wondering what, exactly, the plan is.
I find out seconds later when he returns with a bouquet of roses. “Ta-da!” he crows, whipping the flowers out from behind his back.
“Seriously? We said we weren’t going to do anything!”
“What’s the point of having all these holidays together—even fake ones—if we don’t celebrate properly?”
“Thank you,” I say, accepting the bouquet and inhaling. “They’re beautiful.”
He winks at me. “You’re beautiful. Now put those down and come on.” He opens the window and the sweats start to make sense. I set the flowers on the bed and crawl outside, Crosbie right behind me. There’s a blanket on the roof and we sit in the middle and curl the sides over our legs. Unlike Halloween, there’s no one milling around the front lawn, no space between us, no attempt to find each other a perfect someone else.
“This is sweet,” I say, resting my head on his shoulder.
“There are maybe five nights a year this place is quiet,” Crosbie replies. “This is one of them. Lie back.”
We recline, his arm around my shoulders, my cheek on his chest. The stars are out in full force, and for a long minute we just watch them. Not even the February chill can penetrate our lovely little fog.
“You take any astronomy courses last year?” Crosbie asks.
“No. You?”
“No. I don’t know what the hell we’re looking at.” He fumbles in his jacket for something. “But I do know this.” He passes me a manila envelope and watches as I open it, pulling out a piece of heavyweight paper with fancy script printed across the top. It’s a Star Certificate, complete with coordinates for where new star Nora Kincaid can be found, and stamped with an official gold seal.
“Crosbie,” I mumble, touched. “You…”
“I gave it some thought,” he says, “and I know how desperate you are for attention. Now you’re a star.”
I shake my head. “You do the sweetest things. And then you ruin them by talking.”
I feel his chest rumble as he laughs. “Happy Valentine’s Day.”
I moan. “My gift is not going to compare to this.” We weren’t supposed to get presents, so I’d only picked up something as a gag.
He lifts his head to peer down at me. “No? What is it?”
“A new copy of Hustler and then…some sex?”
“Both are acceptable,” he says, patting my shoulder. “Also, ‘new copy of Hustler’ implies I have an old copy, and I think we both know I don’t.”
“My mistake.”
He sits up. “All right. Let’s go inside and start knocking boots.”
I sit up too. “You’re so romantic.”
He grins at me, sexy and unapologetic and everything I never knew I wanted. “The last time we were up here, I desperately wanted to kiss you,” he says, surprising me. “I’d wanted to for a long time, and this seemed like the perfe
ct place. Then the next thing I know I’m pointing out guys for you to hook up with—”
“You suggested absolute losers.”
“Yeah, well, I have my methods. Now look around.”
I study the empty street, the dark houses, all the parties hosted at sororities on the other side of campus. There are no cars, no people, no distractions.
“What am I seeing?” I ask.
“Nothing,” he replies. “You see what you want to see, and sometimes you see what I want you to see.”
“We’re probably on the same page with this one.”
“We both want you to see me,” he confirms.
I stroke his bicep. “How could I not see you? With all these huge muscles…” I sling a leg across his thighs and slide a hand under his jacket, over his stomach. “And this six pack…”
“It’s an eight-pack,” he mutters, eyes sliding shut.
“And this adorable messy hair…”
“Don’t ruin it with the wrong adjectives.”
“Fine, no more compliments. Just facts. I love you, Crosbie Lucas.”
“I love you too,” he replies. He smiles and opens his eyes, his gaze trailing over my temple, my brows, my nose, my mouth, my chin. Just looking at me.
Seeing me.
Only me.
thank you!
Thank you for reading Undecided. I hope you enjoyed it!
· Would you like to know when my next book is available? Sign up for my newsletter at www.juliannakeyes.com/newsletter.html, follow me on Twitter at @JuliannaKeyes, or like my Facebook page at http://facebook.com/juliannakeyesauthor.
· I post deleted scenes, pictures, and insider information about each book on my website. Check out www.juliannakeyes.com for more.
· If you’re so inclined, I’d love for you to write a review! Positive or negative, I appreciate them all and they help other readers find my books.
· Undecided is my first foray into New Adult Romance. I also write contemporary romance that’s more adult, a little bit grittier, and a lot sexier. My standalone titles are Just Once and Going the Distance. I also write the Time Served series, which includes Time Served and In Her Defense. The third book in the series, The Good Fight, comes out in July 2016. They can also be read as standalones.
· Do you think Kellan should get his own happily ever after? Let me know! You can reach me at any of the links above, or email me at [email protected].
about julianna keyes
Julianna Keyes is a Canadian writer who has lived on both coasts and several places in between. She’s been skydiving, bungee jumping and white water rafting, but nothing thrills—or terrifies—her as much as the blank page. She loves Chinese food, foreign languages, baseball and television, though not necessarily in that order, and writes sizzling stories with strong characters, plenty of conflict, and lots of making up.
In addition to Undecided, she is the author of four contemporary romances: Just Once, the story of a world weary socialite and a stubborn ranch foreman; Going the Distance, a love story set in China between a kindergarten ESL teacher and a former army interrogator; Time Served, the tale of an ambitious young lawyer whose perfect world is jeopardized when she reunites with her ex-con ex-boyfriend; and In Her Defense, in which a ruthless young lawyer realizes there’s more to life than being the best…right?
For more details on these and any upcoming books, visit her online at http://juliannakeyes.com, or sign up for her free newsletter here or at http://juliannakeyes.com/newsletter.html.
To learn more about Julianna, follow her on Facebook or Twitter.
acknowledgments
If there’s ever a time to realize how truly smart and talented your friends are, it’s when you’re trying to self-publish a book for the first time. Their help and encouragement has resulted in a final product of which I am very proud, and though I’ve thanked them privately, they deserve much more public praise than I can find words for. But I’ll try.
Khoi Le: Friend, photographer, and graphic designer. I told him about my concept for a cover, sent him a dreadful mock up, and he made magic happen. He’s also helped out with a bunch of images for my website, and never complains that I can’t figure out how to determine what size a picture should be. This kind of friend (and graphic designer) is a rare and wonderful thing. He took the picture, made the cover, and outdid all my expectations. You can contact him through his website: http://khoistory.com. Thanks, Khoi.
Natalie Perret: I’m from Canada, Natalie’s from New Zealand, and a long time ago, we met in China. Our friendship has traversed continents, oceans, and many years, and she is one of the few friends who is actually brave enough to read my books. This is her first time seeing an unpolished version, and she was generous enough to volunteer her time and her smarts to proofread for me. She was incredibly thorough and helpful, and without her you’d be reading things like “in appropriate” and “freeze booze.” Xie xie, Natalie.
Elan Cross: How fortuitous that I made a new writer friend just as I embarked on this self-publishing journey. Having another writer to talk to and brainstorm with is something I have done without for a very long time, and Elan’s editing hand helped get a lot of unwieldy sentences under control. Her vacillation between Team Kellan and Team Crosbie also told me I’d picked the right name for the book. Victory! Oh, this isn’t about me? Thanks, Elan.
Naomi Hughes: Back cover copy wrangler extraordinaire! I knew my copy needed help and I was lucky to stumble upon Naomi through a series of fortunate coincidences. She helped whip the text into shape and the final product is something of which I am very proud. You can find her at www.naomiedits.com.
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